Behind the Scenes with the SCEA Music Department

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If you ever though that music in PlayStation games is an afterthought, think again. I spent an afternoon with a trio from the music team here at SCEA and found out quite the contrary. Games like UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves, inFAMOUS and the upcoming God of War III are proving just how amazing game music can be.

This definitely ranks up there with one of my favorite interviews I’ve been a part of. You’ve already met Jonathan Mayer. This time we’re adding Senior Music Manager Clint Bajakian and Music Editor Scott Hanau, who discuss all things music here at PlayStation. In this six-minute video, the team touches on topics including what it’s like to work alongside game developers like Naughty Dog, the huge orchestral sessions at Skywalker Sound and beyond, how the music was crafted for the UNCHARTED 2 train sequence, the percussion in God of War III and much more.

And you’ll also notice UNCHARTED 2 composer Greg Edmonson doing his thing along with Leslie Ann Jones, Director of Music Recording and Scoring for Skywalker Sound.

Hope you enjoy it!

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58 Comments

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  • still can’t see these on my ps3 it keeps saying application not supported now i have to walk a few feet to my p.c. curse you sony!
    but seriously fix this please. I like checking the blog on my ps3 cause once i’m done I can jump right in gaming

  • Please smack that first off the face of the Blog.

    I actually have a number of tracks from Uncharted and there’s no way I’d refer to it as an “afterthought.” Simply gorgeous. Need to look into God of War- it never occurred to me before to get the soundtracks, but they’re certainly worth the purchase.

  • right into gaming(we really need an edit button)

  • I love this kind of stuff.

  • hey sony,

    somethings wrong with your website, i got automatically logged in as trey_borbon

    i dont know who that is

    OMG OMG OMG

  • Excellent Video!
    Oh, and if you like Uncharted 2’s Score, make sure to vote for it as Best Original Score in the VGAs and for all the other Sony nominated games :D

    http://www.spike.com/event/vga2009/page/vote/category/34723

  • More videos featuring behind the scenes interviews with the developers and creative talent behind the big titles. It is a great way to showcase the technology in the PlayStation hardware that allows it to do things that other consoles can not, and the design thought process behind your acclaimed titles.

  • I’m a god of war fanatic AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Great video, I have a section on my ipod for themes, there just my favorite. I have shows from way back and quite a bit of video game music. Socom 3 theme anyone?

  • awesome for this stuff i love uncharted 2 ever since relase and beta add me psn:lets-be_azn
    i’ll be on tmrw, and
    @ 7 yea that happened to me b4 too

  • Sony, why did you guys release the GoW collection so soon for? It just make the wait for God of War 3 a lot longer. :(
    Oh and it doesn’t help that it comes with a demo, because that sure isn’t helping either :(
    I just want my GoW3 now. Do you guys know when we will be seeing something soon on the progress of God of War 3?

  • A music video service for the US…. And Canada would be nice :D

  • @7
    iComet

    Yep… keep voting! You can vote everyday! Uncharted 2 with 8 nominations baby!

  • I love the god of war soundtrack it really fits the game amazingly.

  • cant see the video through my ps3 browser :/ hope u guys fix this soon, i love music in alot of games, my personal favorite game music is MGS music. Those songs are epic! especially in MGS4. I also love GOW music, Kingdom Hearts music(those piano pieces are amazing), Uncharted, quite a few games have good music.

  • The music from the God of War series is amazing. They really put my into the game. Especially when the screen pulls away to show the backgrounds of the stage (queue epic music). I can’t wait to see what you guys have in store for God of War III. Keep up the good work.

  • Clint Bajakian was behind the soundscapes for many of my beloved Lucasarts adventure games of yesteryear. It’s always great to see him actively involved with the best.

  • Uncharted 2’s Score Was Epic.
    Greg, if you reading give yourself a pat on the back !

    I Wish I’d Taken On Music Fot GCSE now…..

  • Sony taking the time out to share with us the music that makes the games we love so much more epic. This is a very nice treat. Thanks Chris!

  • i love this sort of thing! im not much of a music player but listening to my favourite songs etc.. really gets me going when playing all sorts of games.
    i would love to know about the warhawk soundtrack personally, its equally as epic as God of war and Uncharted but there is something about the orchestral score of warhawk which really hits (so to speak :D). also i would love to know what is being done about the ratchet and resistance soundtracks, i would love them in my collection.

  • i love music in games. specially on jrpgs, i think it would be a great idea if sony would let us import the game’s music straight from the blu-ray in to our hard drives

  • Wow, this video answers my question of how they make these video games sound so epic. Thank You, Chris.

    • You\’re welcome. It answered at a lot of my questions, too. Hopefully I can get up to an orchestral session sometime soon and bring back some good info!

  • Uncharted 1 and 2’s scores are some of the best in gaming or any medium, absolutely beautiful, I will be buying them off of Itunes!!! :D

  • how do u get the uncharted 2 music ?

  • I myself am a music guy, ive specifiallymademusic for HOME aswell but not sure wwhere to submit it, i sent links with ISRC Codes to The HOME Manegers with links and there contain no samplesorlyrics so leagl is just aout clear right there… quality stuff. any ideas?

  • sup chris, just realized u were the Poster.

  • Chris, when will the new boxart format for PS3 games be a STANDARD because games like MW2 and Borderland came out after 10/13 and they still use the old one and even though games like Battlefield: BC2 and 3D Game Dot Heroes have the new one, they they don’t have the PSN logo at the top right, what’s up w/ that, every game that come out should have the exact same boxart format from now on, PLEASE REPLY CHRIS, THANKS!!!

    Also, will every game coming out from now on support cross game invite like MW2? please don’t skip!!!

  • AMAZING!

    I loved the GOW3 trailer music that really got my blood flowing and U2 was just mind blowing. On 5.1 surround sound every sound was euphoric.

    P.S. Are you guys also working with Battlefield:BC2, besides the graphics being awesome, the sound from the beta are so fracking awesome.

  • Here is a direct link to the video (views just fine via the browser) for all those viewing this via your PS3 browser and experiencing the “This application is not supported” error: http://www.viddler.com/explore/sceablog/videos/692/
    Jeff/Chris, may I again suggest you provide this service yourselves until this problem can be fixed.

  • This is why I am proud to have a 7.1 sound system…

  • Amazing video Chris , please keep them coming , i love to see things like these , i have watched all making of : God of War, Motorstorm , Uncharted 2 , inFAMOUS and Heavenly Sword videos and i love them all , hey Chris i wanted to ask you if we are gonna get a psp GO bundle similar to the european one , i hope you said yes and congrats on the ps3 numbers from black friday , impressive numbers indeed , you see what a good price , good marketing and excellent games can get you lol, is time to add more servers , dont you think? lol , anyways congrats you guys are doing an excellent job but i still wanna see a playstation tv show lol

  • Thanks for posting the soundtrack samplers early at http://www.youtube.com/user/SCEAMusicGroup

  • I love soundtracks. As for the PS3, I have the following soundtracks: Demon’s Souls, Warhawk, Uncharted, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2 and Infamous. I love all of them.

    What I don’t get, is why we cannot buy them through the PSN. Also, please find a way to make the Heavenly Sword soundtrack available. It is very frustrating that there is no way to obtain a legitimate copy of the music from that game.

  • Great video!

    You guys should consider integrating blog posts into the XMB. Just like “What’s New”, why not have a “PS Blog” section as well. Have every blog update posted under the PS Blog section this way more people will be able to view the post. I think that would be a great addition

  • I listen to Uncharted 1 and 2, God of War and Warhawk soundtracks on my PS3 all the time. Beautiful orchestras. You wouldn’t even guess they were from games if you didn’t know.

  • Yo Chris the PS3 browser definitely needs an update because i cannot view the videos on the PS3 blog. Whats up with that your own website cannot even run properly on your own browser. Address this situation as soon as possible.Thank you.

  • God of War and Shadow of The Colossus have the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a game. Looking forward to the sequels.

    Thanks Chris, great job.

  • I love videogame soundtracks a lot. There’s something about the music the orchestras play, it just express so much emotion. I loved the Uncharted 2 soundtrack, and I hope we can see more game soundtracks released, wether or not it is through iTunes or as a CD (though I’d perfer the latter)

    Also, please fix the PS3 browser! I had to turn on my computer just to watch this :(.

  • This is why SCEA is awesome! you guys rock.

  • Do you know of soundtracks and original score ever being available for download on PS Store?

  • COUGH oooh boy looks like i have swine. time to skip work and listen to this epic music!

  • “This definitely ranks up there with one of my favorite interviews I’ve been a part of. ”

    you like music alot don’t you ? , you and me can be best friends =]
    (i cannot wait to see what they have for Team Ico, i always ALWAYS listen to their soundtrack)

  • I love the music in uncharted 2, its so emotional!

  • Great /sarcasm…..another PSBlog video I can’t watch on my PS3 browser…….are you guys even TRYING to do anything about this? You just seem to ignore every comment about this issue.

  • the music for god of war gives me chills, the first time I saw the gow3 trailer, it actually made me cry. SO glad the ultimate edition comes with the soundtracks

  • Needs more cowbell.

  • I think the uncharted 2 soundtrack fits well with the story line of the game

  • Has Sony thought about making the blog my iPhone friendly? I can’t view imagines. I do most of my blog reading when i’m at work

  • Im so disappointed at NaughtyDog
    I was happy when I got uncharted 2.
    I used to believe that ND will release updates globally.
    Yet, ND is not doing their job, they are not even giving the Fort map to asian people.

    Even if they are working on the translation, why must they release the content to the Us players first?

    More importantly, ND hasnt even mentioned a word about Asian version patch even questions are asked at forums and their twitter page.

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